A very messy conflict is emerging between the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and the Tour de France. The Olympics are scheduled from July 14 to 30. This overlap would mean that the Amaury Sporting Organization (ASO) is faced with a difficult decision: shifting the Tour to a very different time of the year.
Christian Prudhomme is not amused
Dutch outlet WielerFlits asked Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme about the scheduling conflict with the 2028 Summer Games, as well as the time difference. According to the report, the Frenchman was not pleased with the IOC’s decision.
“Which date the Tour will have in 2028? That is not up to us. The UCI decides that. We’ll see. Whether the Tour will fall before or after the Olympics? I have no idea,” he said. “Furthermore, it is somewhat ‘sacred’ for the Tour de France to have a stage on the French national holiday ‘Quatorze Juillet‘. In 2028, the opening ceremony of the Summer Games in Los Angeles will take place on July 14.”
2024 Tour was pushed earlier…slightly
In 2024, the Tour began a little earlier due to the conflict with the Paris Games—but it wasn’t too drastic. The French Grand Tour started a week earlier and did not finish in its traditional final stage of Paris. That was because the city was filled with Olympians, organizers, and fans. In fact, the race finished in Nice with a very untraditional time trial. The last time the Tour de France did that was in 1989 when Greg LeMond dramatically won the stage, and yellow, from Laurent Fignon.
In 2020, the Tour started on August 29 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, that was just one of many races to start at an unusual time in the calendar. So many events and sporting competitions were either rescheduled or cancelled then.
The time change problem
If the Tour ran in, say, June, there would also be the question of how much time it would leave before the Olympics. Riders would need to acclimate to the time difference, nine hours between Los Angeles and Paris. Riders who live in North America would usually ensure they are in Europe with plenty of time to spare to adjust. In 2022, Guillaume Boivin was a last-minute addition to Israel-Premier Tech’s Tour de France squad. He had to rush over to Europe just in time for the Grand Départ in Denmark—hardly optimal. In fact, to make things worse, his bikes and luggage didn’t show up, and he was forced to use spares for the entire race.
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